Wow, this is the thread for me! I wouldn’t willingly relive this last week, although we are here, we love it here, and we are slowly getting moved in.
😦 Showers this past week and a half were few and far between. I had one Wednesday before moving (because I was washing my last load of towels Thursday morning before the washer was disconnected to move), then Sunday afternoon (four days later) we asked a local friend if we could use hers, then yesterday afternoon (five days later) we finally got our own shower ready to use.
😦 We still don’t have a working stove. (The flooring company broke the door and is waiting on a replacement part.)
😦 One week ago I was five hours into being up and working, on hardly any sleep two nights in a row, with no clue it would be another 12 hours before we would be unpacked at the other end (way longer packing the truck than expected, and the expected three-and-a-half-hour drive turning into more than five with a long delay).
😦 We found out last week that the toilets we had ordered a month before were still back-ordered, and fortunately were able to rescue one of the ones we had taken out and get it reinstalled. (We were told that both–from 1980–flushed slowly but especially don’t trust the one that had been in the master bath, so we got the other one put back in.)
😦 We found out Saturday that the vanities we ordered couldn’t be put in without some plumbing work. One has been almost installed–we are missing a few inches of pipe–and the other one awaits the plumber. Add that we waited till yesterday for the flooring guy to caulk the bathroom and give us a working tub, and water-wise it has been an interesting week, one toilet and the kitchen sink.
😦 Kitchen shelf brackets from 1980 were plastic and were breaking on us, so my husband had to get new metal ones, and I had to wait on him before I could put much kitchen stuff in place (yesterday). I can’t put bathroom stuff away because the vanities aren’t finished (and the master vanity is still in boxes). I can’t put books away because none of the bookcases are properly positioned (in the case of the biggest ones, they need to be anchored to the wall; in the case of others, they sit behind big heavy boxes waiting on workmen), and all week long I have been moving boxes to get to other boxes, while hundreds of book boxes sit awaiting unpacking. Some of our clothing is still in boxes who knows where, and our dining room chairs sit in our church basement awaiting our dining room being clear enough to receive them. I am typing on my husband’s laptop because my own computer has not been set up yet. Some of what we are awaiting is paid labor (a plumber coming Tuesday, for instance), and some is volunteer labor (a friend from church who will finish the nearly finished vanity and anchor the bookcases), and some is parts (toilets, oven door). But altogether it is maddening to be able to unpack well under half our stuff in the first week (probably 20-25% considering half of our boxes are books and I haven’t been able to touch them yet).
🙂 We are here, and everyone arrived safely and helpers got back home safely (though some as late as 3 a.m. Sunday).
🙂 Our kitchen is mostly ready to go, our closet and dresser full of clothes, and most of our furniture positioned.
🙂 We have on order two toilets, a microwave and cart, and various and sundry other items.
🙂 My husband commented this week that we still haven’t had that first big fight that our premarital counselor was watching for us to have so that he could referee it. I told my husband he missed a wonderful opportunity since his best chance for that was probably this move.
🙂 We keep finding more and more things we love about our location. The within-walking-distance Mexican restaurant is supposed to be excellent. The Kroger is five minutes away and as well stocked as the big one that was half an hour away, not the smaller one that had been 15 minutes from our old home. Last night we decided to go through the Dairy Queen drive-thru (less than 5 minutes by car) on our way home; we ordered at 10:25 though their closing time is listed as 10:00). So far everyone we have met in town has been friendly.
🙂 Our old church helped out well, including one couple being willing on little notice to come with us (seven hours round trip driving time, plus unpacking time, plus an hour back to their own home), after they had been at our house at the other end for seven hours, when we realized we needed a second moving truck. They are in their 60s, but they saw it as an adventure.
🙂 Our new church showed up strong, 10 or 12 people showing up after 8:00 on a Saturday night when our estimated time had been 3-6:00. We had homemade food in the fridge, people to unload two trucks, and women to see that some of the cupboards had not been cleaned out and the blinds hadn’t been rehung and to do it. Our California king bed was put up, big bookcases and couch put where my husband wanted them, and most of the boxes delivered to the appropriate room. All that after the deacon who was sending out e-mails told us he just wasn’t sure we could get any help that late on a Saturday night and was it OK if we didn’t get it unpacked that night?
🙂 All in all, it is much slower and much harder than we envisioned. Normally I would have had nearly all the books unpacked by now and I can’t even start on them. But we are here and it is home.
I just saw a video clip on ATT about a man attacking a car with a sledge hammer.
People should begin to understand that everything that happens is likely under surveillance whether on video or cellphone camera.
Be careful. Everything you do is recorded somewhere.
And everything you put on the internet is kept somewhere.
Hillary’s missing e-mails are somewhere.
Somewhere. Where is the issue.
I remember when we first moved to Italy from Greece. In the first week, the inlaws arrived and wanted to see the country. And take a trip to Scotland on the train. We were surrounded in boxes and barely had room to sit but they were good guests. Helped where they could, stayed out of the way when they couldn’t. And we had a lovely train trip!
The first six moves we made after we were married consisted of hiring someone to move our house trailer. But then I had to set it up. The one in Spartanburg was difficult because the ground wasn’t level. The trailer has to be perfectly level or the doors won’t close.
I helped the guy who bought if from me sit it up again. He lived in Alexandria.
The big thing about our move from H’ville to here was disposing of at least half of our stuff. We should have done more disposing.
But I didn’t dispose of my pet rock. I lost it.
Alexa is the beginning of what will be our home robots in the probably not-too-distant future.
Cheryl, so glad you’re “in.” I’m still trying to wrap my mind around Mexican food in the Midwest.
One thing I’ve noticed whenever I’ve moved is the tendency, when I’m looking for something, to “see” it in my mind’s eye in the spot where it was in the former apartment or house. Not helpful! I’ll still sometimes be trying to figure out where a particular book is and I’ll “see” it where it was in a living room bookcase in my former residence. No clue where it is here, though.
chas, you’ll have to put a pet rock on your Christmas list. It surely is destined to come back in style.
“The Pet Rock was a short lived fad that peaked in popularity during the 1975 holiday season. It sounds ridiculous on the surface but maybe not as much when given a closer look. It’s considered to be one of the best marketed products of all time …”
Donna, I didn’t get a manual with my rock.
It was given to my by Elvera as a joke.
I put it on the shelf and said, “Stay”. It was obedient, never moved.
There is a picture of it on the second tier of photo’s on the side. A green “frog”. I don’t know what happened, but I do know that it’s somewhere.
That’s more than most others can say about their lost pets.
We had quite the spectacular lightning display last night. I don’t know what it did with the mudslides as there was some rain. I don’t know if any fires started but it was a couple hours of non stop and a couple more hours of frequent lightning.
No matter how suspicious it has seemed that Amazon is encouraging us to put listening devices in every room of our homes, the company has always said that its Echo assistants are not listening in on or recording conversations. Over and over again, company spokespeople have promised that they only start recording if someone says the wake word: “Alexa”.
It’s a spiel Danielle, an Alexa user from Portland, Oregon, had believed. She’d installed Echo devices and smart bulbs in every room in her house, accepting Amazon’s claims that they were not invading her privacy. But today she asked the company to investigate after an Alexa device recorded a private conversation between her and her husband and sent it to a random number in their address book without their permission.
I think you have to disable the microphone on those devices — so anytime you want it to do something, you’d have to turn the microphone back on again. Kind of a hassle.
I happened to think of my mother this morning.
She has been gone for years now.
But she taught children in SS.
For many years.
It occurred to me that she taught children of the children she taught.
Some blessing.
“Alexa? My story. It’s late at night. My wife and I are dozing watching a movie. The movie says, ‘I’m so sorry your grandma died.’ Suddenly, Alexa lights up and says, ‘I’m so sorry!’ Instant creep out. I unplugged it right there.”
You can stop Alexis from talking, but you can’t stop her from listening.
Or repeating what she heard, regardless of what Amazon says.
The Democrats didn’t spy on Trump and Alexia doesn’t spy on you. She is only there to serve.
DJ, you should not be surprised at Mexican cuisine in the Midwest. We have all kinds in this day and age. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Mexican, German, Ethiopian, Greek, Italian, Vietnamese, Indian, and many others – all are available locally in Ann Arbor, and it isn’t even a very large city.
You know what our favorite restaurant was when we were in California? Cocos! Why? There’s nothing like a Cocos here in Ann Arbor. Or Marie Callenders. Or Bakers Square. We enjoy a basic American restaurant with a lot of choices on the menu and good pie, and we have to go to California to get it.
🙂 We had a fine time in California, from the Sierra foothills, to the Bay Area, down the central coast, spending 10 days in LA, and ending with my niece’s wedding at a beautiful hillside ranch near San Luis Obispo. We went to Universal Studios and Paramount Ranch, visited friends and relatives, attended our old church, and even got to help some old friends when they had to move on very short notice.
😦 I had hoped for meetups with Michelle and DJ while we were there, but neither worked out. We’ll have to try again the next time we’re out that way.
😦 I really, really hate flying these days, the way they cram you in. It wasn’t always so. Coach was never luxurious, but what it is now is just ridiculous.
🙂 Home sweet home. There is such a thing as too much vacation. I think we came home just short of that, perfect timing.
I haven’t flown in a while, but last time I did (sometime post-2001, to NY), it was not a great experience with all the added security checks & cramped seating.
Getting through airport security isn’t so bad any more. I think the problem immediately post-9/11 was that the airport terminals didn’t have the kind of space needed to get everyone through the more rigorous screening quickly. I remember LAX was a nightmare in 2004. But in our last couple trips, 2013 and this year, they had more space, more scanning machines, and more people to run them, so they could get people through more quickly. It’s still a pain to take off your shoes and pull your computers out of the bag to put them through the machines separately, but it goes pretty smoothly. Also, everyone’s not as uptight as they were 15 years ago.
😦 KJ got pulled aside going through security at LAX the day we came back. When her backpack went through the machine the screeners decided something looked funny.
🙂 The security lady who went through KJ’s backpack with her was really nice and friendly about it, and she and KJ laughed about the “suspicious-looking” stuffed dog, and the chocolate frog with the foil wrapping from Harry Potter World at Universal.
Thanks, Jo. We got back Tuesday evening and I’ve been back at work since Wednesday. The really awful pressure a few weeks ago was finishing things that had to be done before the trip. That was all done before we left. There’s pressure now, too, but not as bad.
My next trip will be to Cairns which will be two flights each way. I have gotten smarter, though. I no longer book the 6am flight from Cairns to return. I discovered an 11am flight which still lets me link to our flights and get all the way home. I hated the 4am pickup to return.
For the lengthy two flights to Krakow, I paid the extra $50 for stretch seats. My husband thought it unnecessary but I got a deal. Of course the stretch seats are maybe an inch or two more spacious, length wise, than the normal economy seats have always been. You’re still shoulder to shoulder with strangers. But at least I could read without having to hold the book inches from my nose–particularly when the person ahead of me put her seat back. 😦
Wandering Views 
Wow, this is the thread for me! I wouldn’t willingly relive this last week, although we are here, we love it here, and we are slowly getting moved in.
😦 Showers this past week and a half were few and far between. I had one Wednesday before moving (because I was washing my last load of towels Thursday morning before the washer was disconnected to move), then Sunday afternoon (four days later) we asked a local friend if we could use hers, then yesterday afternoon (five days later) we finally got our own shower ready to use.
😦 We still don’t have a working stove. (The flooring company broke the door and is waiting on a replacement part.)
😦 One week ago I was five hours into being up and working, on hardly any sleep two nights in a row, with no clue it would be another 12 hours before we would be unpacked at the other end (way longer packing the truck than expected, and the expected three-and-a-half-hour drive turning into more than five with a long delay).
😦 We found out last week that the toilets we had ordered a month before were still back-ordered, and fortunately were able to rescue one of the ones we had taken out and get it reinstalled. (We were told that both–from 1980–flushed slowly but especially don’t trust the one that had been in the master bath, so we got the other one put back in.)
😦 We found out Saturday that the vanities we ordered couldn’t be put in without some plumbing work. One has been almost installed–we are missing a few inches of pipe–and the other one awaits the plumber. Add that we waited till yesterday for the flooring guy to caulk the bathroom and give us a working tub, and water-wise it has been an interesting week, one toilet and the kitchen sink.
😦 Kitchen shelf brackets from 1980 were plastic and were breaking on us, so my husband had to get new metal ones, and I had to wait on him before I could put much kitchen stuff in place (yesterday). I can’t put bathroom stuff away because the vanities aren’t finished (and the master vanity is still in boxes). I can’t put books away because none of the bookcases are properly positioned (in the case of the biggest ones, they need to be anchored to the wall; in the case of others, they sit behind big heavy boxes waiting on workmen), and all week long I have been moving boxes to get to other boxes, while hundreds of book boxes sit awaiting unpacking. Some of our clothing is still in boxes who knows where, and our dining room chairs sit in our church basement awaiting our dining room being clear enough to receive them. I am typing on my husband’s laptop because my own computer has not been set up yet. Some of what we are awaiting is paid labor (a plumber coming Tuesday, for instance), and some is volunteer labor (a friend from church who will finish the nearly finished vanity and anchor the bookcases), and some is parts (toilets, oven door). But altogether it is maddening to be able to unpack well under half our stuff in the first week (probably 20-25% considering half of our boxes are books and I haven’t been able to touch them yet).
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🙂 We are here, and everyone arrived safely and helpers got back home safely (though some as late as 3 a.m. Sunday).
🙂 Our kitchen is mostly ready to go, our closet and dresser full of clothes, and most of our furniture positioned.
🙂 We have on order two toilets, a microwave and cart, and various and sundry other items.
🙂 My husband commented this week that we still haven’t had that first big fight that our premarital counselor was watching for us to have so that he could referee it. I told my husband he missed a wonderful opportunity since his best chance for that was probably this move.
🙂 We keep finding more and more things we love about our location. The within-walking-distance Mexican restaurant is supposed to be excellent. The Kroger is five minutes away and as well stocked as the big one that was half an hour away, not the smaller one that had been 15 minutes from our old home. Last night we decided to go through the Dairy Queen drive-thru (less than 5 minutes by car) on our way home; we ordered at 10:25 though their closing time is listed as 10:00). So far everyone we have met in town has been friendly.
🙂 Our old church helped out well, including one couple being willing on little notice to come with us (seven hours round trip driving time, plus unpacking time, plus an hour back to their own home), after they had been at our house at the other end for seven hours, when we realized we needed a second moving truck. They are in their 60s, but they saw it as an adventure.
🙂 Our new church showed up strong, 10 or 12 people showing up after 8:00 on a Saturday night when our estimated time had been 3-6:00. We had homemade food in the fridge, people to unload two trucks, and women to see that some of the cupboards had not been cleaned out and the blinds hadn’t been rehung and to do it. Our California king bed was put up, big bookcases and couch put where my husband wanted them, and most of the boxes delivered to the appropriate room. All that after the deacon who was sending out e-mails told us he just wasn’t sure we could get any help that late on a Saturday night and was it OK if we didn’t get it unpacked that night?
🙂 All in all, it is much slower and much harder than we envisioned. Normally I would have had nearly all the books unpacked by now and I can’t even start on them. But we are here and it is home.
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I just saw a video clip on ATT about a man attacking a car with a sledge hammer.
People should begin to understand that everything that happens is likely under surveillance whether on video or cellphone camera.
Be careful. Everything you do is recorded somewhere.
And everything you put on the internet is kept somewhere.
Hillary’s missing e-mails are somewhere.
Somewhere. Where is the issue.
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Sounds like you moved. We have done that fourteen times in our marriage. With four more partial moves. They are all an adventure.
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Whew — what a move, Cheryl. I hope the things you’re waiting on come together soon.
Glad you’ve got such a wonderful community in your new church!
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Adventure is the code word. I find thinking, “six months from now this will all be over,” helped. 🙂
Now, after nearly five years, if only I could find . . . 🙂
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I remember when we first moved to Italy from Greece. In the first week, the inlaws arrived and wanted to see the country. And take a trip to Scotland on the train. We were surrounded in boxes and barely had room to sit but they were good guests. Helped where they could, stayed out of the way when they couldn’t. And we had a lovely train trip!
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RE My 11;11. If you have Alexia, I have told you before that she listens to you. I heard recently that she also stores your data.
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The first six moves we made after we were married consisted of hiring someone to move our house trailer. But then I had to set it up. The one in Spartanburg was difficult because the ground wasn’t level. The trailer has to be perfectly level or the doors won’t close.
I helped the guy who bought if from me sit it up again. He lived in Alexandria.
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The big thing about our move from H’ville to here was disposing of at least half of our stuff. We should have done more disposing.
But I didn’t dispose of my pet rock. I lost it.
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BTW, Middle GD has Alexia. I know how she works.
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Alexa is the beginning of what will be our home robots in the probably not-too-distant future.
Cheryl, so glad you’re “in.” I’m still trying to wrap my mind around Mexican food in the Midwest.
One thing I’ve noticed whenever I’ve moved is the tendency, when I’m looking for something, to “see” it in my mind’s eye in the spot where it was in the former apartment or house. Not helpful! I’ll still sometimes be trying to figure out where a particular book is and I’ll “see” it where it was in a living room bookcase in my former residence. No clue where it is here, though.
chas, you’ll have to put a pet rock on your Christmas list. It surely is destined to come back in style.
“The Pet Rock was a short lived fad that peaked in popularity during the 1975 holiday season. It sounds ridiculous on the surface but maybe not as much when given a closer look. It’s considered to be one of the best marketed products of all time …”
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Donna, I didn’t get a manual with my rock.
It was given to my by Elvera as a joke.
I put it on the shelf and said, “Stay”. It was obedient, never moved.
There is a picture of it on the second tier of photo’s on the side. A green “frog”. I don’t know what happened, but I do know that it’s somewhere.
That’s more than most others can say about their lost pets.
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🙂 Rain!
🙂 Humidity!
🙂 The helicopters and tankers are going full on today – they should make great progress.
😦 Grass is really long and I need to mow 🙂
🙂 Partly sunny out, so I shall now go mow
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We had quite the spectacular lightning display last night. I don’t know what it did with the mudslides as there was some rain. I don’t know if any fires started but it was a couple hours of non stop and a couple more hours of frequent lightning.
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😦 Well the mower’s pulley system just blew apart. And it started lightly raining.
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scissors
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Pet rocks need to be microchipped, apparently.
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Donna, it will come back when It gets hungry.
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Cheryl, I have been keeping up with your adventures. I just haven’t had the time to respond.
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Mumsee – Are you saying that Kare should cut her grass with scissors?
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🙂 🙂 Hmmm, an almost three hour nap? I’ll take it.
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Well, we can’t have her napping away while there is grass to be cut. I have been pulling weeds for an hour or so now, time for my nap.
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🙂
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Beware Alexa – or any other of those voice activated devices, for that matter: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/24/amazon-alexa-recorded-conversation
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I think you have to disable the microphone on those devices — so anytime you want it to do something, you’d have to turn the microphone back on again. Kind of a hassle.
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I happened to think of my mother this morning.
She has been gone for years now.
But she taught children in SS.
For many years.
It occurred to me that she taught children of the children she taught.
Some blessing.
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Today, four year old in glasses turns twelve. What an adventure!
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Ah, Mumsee, you had to go and make me miss NJ Lawyer!
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That is who I think of when I mention that.
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🙂 Progress: Hubby was able to kneel at the communion rail today. 🙂
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Alexa joke from a FB friend:
“I use Alexa for a variety of things. You then have to say Alexa stop to get her to stop yakking. This does not work for your husband”
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Ah, and then this post from my veterinarian:
“Alexa? My story. It’s late at night. My wife and I are dozing watching a movie. The movie says, ‘I’m so sorry your grandma died.’ Suddenly, Alexa lights up and says, ‘I’m so sorry!’ Instant creep out. I unplugged it right there.”
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You can stop Alexis from talking, but you can’t stop her from listening.
Or repeating what she heard, regardless of what Amazon says.
The Democrats didn’t spy on Trump and Alexia doesn’t spy on you. She is only there to serve.
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6 Arrows – Very glad to hear that!
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I was very glad to see that. 😉
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DJ, you should not be surprised at Mexican cuisine in the Midwest. We have all kinds in this day and age. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Mexican, German, Ethiopian, Greek, Italian, Vietnamese, Indian, and many others – all are available locally in Ann Arbor, and it isn’t even a very large city.
You know what our favorite restaurant was when we were in California? Cocos! Why? There’s nothing like a Cocos here in Ann Arbor. Or Marie Callenders. Or Bakers Square. We enjoy a basic American restaurant with a lot of choices on the menu and good pie, and we have to go to California to get it.
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🙂 We had a fine time in California, from the Sierra foothills, to the Bay Area, down the central coast, spending 10 days in LA, and ending with my niece’s wedding at a beautiful hillside ranch near San Luis Obispo. We went to Universal Studios and Paramount Ranch, visited friends and relatives, attended our old church, and even got to help some old friends when they had to move on very short notice.
😦 I had hoped for meetups with Michelle and DJ while we were there, but neither worked out. We’ll have to try again the next time we’re out that way.
😦 I really, really hate flying these days, the way they cram you in. It wasn’t always so. Coach was never luxurious, but what it is now is just ridiculous.
🙂 Home sweet home. There is such a thing as too much vacation. I think we came home just short of that, perfect timing.
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Trust you are refreshed, Kevin, and ready for the pressure that you mentioned at work.
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I hope never to fly again.
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What Mumsee said, minus the “again.”
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I haven’t flown in a while, but last time I did (sometime post-2001, to NY), it was not a great experience with all the added security checks & cramped seating.
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Still, always the fastest way to “get” somewhere
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Getting through airport security isn’t so bad any more. I think the problem immediately post-9/11 was that the airport terminals didn’t have the kind of space needed to get everyone through the more rigorous screening quickly. I remember LAX was a nightmare in 2004. But in our last couple trips, 2013 and this year, they had more space, more scanning machines, and more people to run them, so they could get people through more quickly. It’s still a pain to take off your shoes and pull your computers out of the bag to put them through the machines separately, but it goes pretty smoothly. Also, everyone’s not as uptight as they were 15 years ago.
😦 KJ got pulled aside going through security at LAX the day we came back. When her backpack went through the machine the screeners decided something looked funny.
🙂 The security lady who went through KJ’s backpack with her was really nice and friendly about it, and she and KJ laughed about the “suspicious-looking” stuffed dog, and the chocolate frog with the foil wrapping from Harry Potter World at Universal.
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Thanks, Jo. We got back Tuesday evening and I’ve been back at work since Wednesday. The really awful pressure a few weeks ago was finishing things that had to be done before the trip. That was all done before we left. There’s pressure now, too, but not as bad.
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I love to fly and hope to fly. When you live here flying is a way to get out for a break and, especially, a way to see family.
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My next trip will be to Cairns which will be two flights each way. I have gotten smarter, though. I no longer book the 6am flight from Cairns to return. I discovered an 11am flight which still lets me link to our flights and get all the way home. I hated the 4am pickup to return.
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of course, I should qualify the love to fly comment. The fourteen hour flights across the Pacific are to be endured, not enjoyed.
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Wow, this must be a first to get 49 on Rants and Raves!?
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For the lengthy two flights to Krakow, I paid the extra $50 for stretch seats. My husband thought it unnecessary but I got a deal. Of course the stretch seats are maybe an inch or two more spacious, length wise, than the normal economy seats have always been. You’re still shoulder to shoulder with strangers. But at least I could read without having to hold the book inches from my nose–particularly when the person ahead of me put her seat back. 😦
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